My first ever complete Doom 2 Level

Hi all, I am new here and I love Doom, especially Doom 2 and the Zdoom port. Even more I am really enjoying using Doombuilder 2, even if just for fun. I am a total newb and totally new to it and would really appreciate criticism.

Here is a youtube vid of me playing my first Doom 2 level. And if anyone likes it, maybe I will upload the WAD too :)

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It looks half decent for at first level. There are a ton of things that we could comment on, but I think you're actually aware of many of them. You just need to make more levels to improve and hone your skills in Doombuilder and it'll come by itself once you get more levels done.

If I have to mention something, it would be, to be more consistent with your style and only use flats as textures and textures as flats in places where they actually look good. SUPPORT2 on the ceiling of a (very wide) door looks odd. The same can be said about a flat such as FLAT1_3 plastered all over the walls as a texture. It can look good, but perhaps you should wait until you know the ressources better. Start with just using textures on walls and flats on floor/ceilings. I think it will help you with a cleaner look of the level. Once you get more experience, then start messing with the ressources :)

Personally, I also like to use a lot of different textures, especially when I make The Shores of Hell themed maps. You're also using a lot of different textures, but they shift too abruptly between rooms. This sorta creates an effect where it feels like the player is constantly visiting a new area within the level itself. IMHO there has be an overall theme to the level and the areas bind together via this theme. But again, I'm pretty sure you'll automatically learn this yourself once you get better acquainted with the iwad ressources through building more levels :)

The gameplay is hard to judge when we can't play the level ourselves. But it looks like there's a lot of door camping involved in this level. Player enters room, awakens monsters and kills them from a safe position. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it could be spiced up with some ambushes and surprices via monsters teleporting in or from monster closets. This is all best learned from playing other custom levels or even the original games.

Ask us for advice, post your stuff here and most importantly, just keep making levels :)

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So flats work for both ceilings and floors? I thought flats were floors and the few "Ceiling" labelled textures were for ceilings.... no wonder I found it rather limiting so decided to use all sorts instead.

I haven't worked out how to do teleport traps without scripting yet.... I love editing but I can't script.

I should maybe use more wall open traps.... maybe more switches that activate important parts of the level but also traps and stuff.

I am aware it works kind of weird.... I wasn't finding an overall theme important because it really is just a practice WAD....experimenting and that... I think my favourite room is the big secret area entered at 4:30 onwards. I think the ceiling lights look a bit excessive and weird but I like the floors and the walls, compared to the rest of the level I think I took more trouble with it.

I have made some other levels but they are kind of unfinished gameplay only levels, learning the flow of it and using doombuilder. The floor height never changes and I only change wall textures ala Wolf3d style.... purely so I can focus on using Doombuilder and the gameplay... the idea is to perhaps redo a bunch of levels from scratch and make them look better when I have gotten much better with Doombuilder. Until then I am working on a 32 Level practice Megawad that is completely flat and only changes wall textures as Wolf3d did. Purely for practice. I call it, 32 floors... lol.

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-It's probably worth starting out mapping in vanilla Doom/Doom II formats. That way, you won't have to mess about with stuff like door speeds and the like. It also restricts you to placing textures on walls and flats on floors/ceilings, which could probably help you with what looks good where.[/spoiler]

-Do you know how to adjust the grid size? Those doors look... very thick.

You can change the grid size by pressing the "]" and "[" keys. For reference, doors in Doom are generally 8-16 units wide, and most tech doors have FLAT20 on the underside (though I tend to stick to anything silvery), while CEIL5_2 looks good on most Hell doors with a metal trim on the bottom.

-Don't be afraid to experiment with more wacky level geometry. It's almost always a good idea to keep it at least a bit orthogonal, but most of your rooms seem to be made entirely out of right-angles. Simply having a diagonal turn in a wall can make it look nicer.

Also, even though you have steps in some of your rooms, generally there isn't anything that changes gameplay dynamically, like taller stairs, raised ledges, pits or the like (never make inescapable pits though). But really this isn't a big deal.

-Generally, the texture choices aren't too shabby. As previously mentioned, it's a bit thematically debatable (one second, you're in a base, and the next you're walking through an ancient cobbled room?), but also, you should watch out for tiling textures - textures that have obvious or noticeable features or seams, if repeated across a large area, can break a player's immersion when they get forcibly reminded that they're not standing on a concrete ground, but rather a plane with a texture on it.

This is another reason why I recommend sticking to textures and flats on their respective surfaces for now; in one room has a texture on the floor with a green stain emanating from the top. On a wall, it would look like this was coming from the ceiling, but on the floor there's a visible seam where it fades from grey to green and then suddenly becomes grey again. Nothing game-breaking, just something to watch out for. :)